Marvin asked what's going on
in nineteen seventy,
a 3,000 year old question
that's been buggin me...
What happened, who pulled
the veil over our eyes,
as we've journied this
3,000 year old demise?

Corrupted like a chess game
that done lost its' rook,
deceived and co-opted
by someone else's books.
As I stand before you
reciting this story,
but I'm just a shell
of our original glory.

For I'm an extension
of those once enslaved,
no longer running laws,
commerce or trade.
I don't govern science,
economics or nations,
and I surely don't control
our childrens' education.

Yet now before you
proudly I stand,
perpetrating a fraud
about I'm a black man...
when every week
and each and every day,
I go to my enemy
to earn my pay.
Thinking there's a way
for me to compete,
when we don't even grow
the food that we eat...

And so I'll sleep
just to rise with the dawn,
and Marvin Gayes question
of what's going on?
And thou Malcolm and Garvey
among those in our past,
had the answer to the question
that Marvin once asked...
When will the phoenix
rise up from the ashes,
and the answers they gave
seep down to the masses?